Tamper
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Avatar World Week Day 5: Spirit. After her breakdown, Azula is sent to an institution that attempts to alter her moods using spirit energy.


They liked to tamper with her spirit. She supposed that it didn't matter because it was broken anyways. They constantly shifted it and molded it and faintly Azula knew that it was wrong. But they had tampered with her spirit too much already for her to be alarmed by it beyond the simple acknowledgment that it was unnatural and invasive, no matter how good the intent.

She was a lab elephant-rat of sorts. Before then, spirit vines had never been used to treat a patient like herself. Combined with the Avatar's reluctant aid, she hadn't even a chance to resist. So her moods shifted constantly and not of her own accord. Not even of their own accord. They shifted and bent to the will of Aang.

Azula was a different person day to day. They would elevate her mood and she would become chipper and bubbly, more like TyLee than herself. Sometimes they would touch her spirit in the wrong way and she would be numb and impassive, almost depressive. More closely resembling Mai than Azula. After some time she began naming each personality that seemed to emerge from them playing with her emotions. Including the real Azula there were ten; Cheerful and bubbly Azula was Sachi. Somber Azula was Yuka. When they had her in a state of unexplainable rage, she became Shiori. The passionate and lustful, Aiakahana was most the most uncomfortable to reflect on. Being Aiakahana brought her a sense of shame and embarrassment. Humiliation had a name too, it was Rokora, who was easy to make flustered and awkward.

Other times they were able to bring out a more curiosity driven, childlike version of her. This person, she called, Inori. They cold elicit a more fearful and paranoid version of herself—Kowagaru, she named that one.

There were three emotions that they seemed to enjoy amplifying the most; there was a generous and giving Azula who she has named Shona and a loving and rather sweet version of her that she called Ai-Emi. Least of all, Azula enjoyed being Nari.

Nari was timid, shy, and soft-spoken. Often she was prone to being taken advantage of. Nari was everything Azula dreaded letting herself be. She had no fight. She had no control nor dominance. They usually evoked Nari when they wanted to try a new treatment with her. They knew she wouldn't say know, and if she did then they knew that she would eventually submit. She was almost certain that they were trying to mold her into Nari for good. She would certainly be easier to manage that way.

These days, even on the days where they weren't tampering so heavily with her spirit energy, Azula found herself in a state of confusion. Somewhere down the lines she had lost herself completely, she was growing uncertain of which personality was her real one. She could no longer tell if she was truly feeling things of her own accord or if they were false emotions. And she loathes the uncertainty, the insecurity.

She curled herself up on the bed, it wasn't nearly as comfortable as the one in the palace. Right then she was feeling much more like Nari or Yuka than Azula. That in itself disturbed her, that she was now inclined to call sadness and meekness by other names. That she now had a striking sense that emotions were no longer a part of her—facets of a more complex person—but separate entities entirely.

She heard the door open and jolted. They were there, probably with an armful of spirit vines. Soon they would wrap them around her head and send Aang to utilize them. She'd feel cold fingers of energy tickling at and tweaking things in her brain and in her spirit energy. She squeezed her eyes shut.

But that time it was just Aang, no doctors, just Aang.

"What do you want, Avatar?" She spat. Resentment and sorrow were mixed. Of that, she was fairly certain was her own making. Her real emotional response.

Aang dared to edge closer. "I was wondering if you wanted to get out of here."

Coming from his lips, the question took her by surprise. "Wh-what?"

"It's not right." He replied. "I don't like this at all. I don't like messing with your spirit."

She furrowed her brows.

"They told me that it would be a good thing. They said it would help you, but I don't think that it is." Aang admitted.

She wondered if this was the product of her having flirted with him as Aiakahana, thinking about it brought color to her cheeks. She, herself, had thought about making an escape. But the constant shifts in her personality created such a disorienting fog, one that was hard to think through. She had come up with a few plans, but between personalities, she didn't trust that any of them were solid enough to work. They were probably full of holes. Even if they were foolproof, on some days she would lose the drive to act on them, entirely. "Tell me, Avatar, how are we executing this little prison break?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Aang answered cheerfully. "I'm the Avatar, I'll just take you and walk right out."

"Bold." Azula commented.

"We can worry about Zuko later." He noted. "So, are you in?"

She didn't know why he had to ask. She got to her feet and stretched her arms. She was feeling rather low on energy, but she refused to pass on an escape that had been handed right to her. "Alright, let's go." She hoped that thrill of this little endeavor would be enough to wake the real Azula. She held out her arms.

It took Aang a moment to take the cue, but he metalbended the cuffs away from her wrists. They hit the floor with a metallic clatter. She could feel the tingle of power as the pressure on her chi points released. She could firebend again.

"Don't go to wild, okay?" Aang laughed.

She couldn't make any promises. She knew a few doctors that could use a full force ass-kicking. She vocalized as much.

"I guess that's fair." Aang surprised her again. She wondered if they had been tampering with his spirit energy too. But then, she doubts it. For one, they were only able to work the vines through him. For seconds, after dwelling on it for a moment or two, Aang had seemed rather irritable through the whole process. She still found it hard to believe that he cared what happened to her, that it had bothered him to see her so out of sorts.

She didn't know her way around the compound so well, so she let him take the lead and listened to him as he explained that they were wanting to create another, less medical branch of spirit tampering. That they wanted to weaponize emotional manipulation via spirit assaults.

"How do they think that they are going to get you to agree to this?" She asked as they passed a guard. It ignites in her the sense of confidence she had been waiting for, to walk past someone who was supposed to attack her. Someone who was, at last, too afraid to do it despite the orders he was given.

"They weren't." Aang answered. "By watching me work with the vines, the started to figure out a way to use them, themselves."

Azula nodded, sending a rather spiteful bolt of lightning at the guard.

"Azula!" Aang exclaimed.

"They have to remember who they are dealing with." She replied dismissively. "Anyways, I can't imagine that, that's good for the balance. Them knowing how to bend spirit, I mean."

"No." He agreed. "That's why I was hoping you could help me stop them."

"Why me?"

"Because you know, more than anyone, why it's such a bad idea to tamper with someone's spirit energy." He paused. "That and you're one of the most powerful people I know."

Her stomach fluttered pleasantly. It did her well to know that someone still thought so. Perhaps the damage dealt to her spirit wasn't as critical as she had anticipated, she was already feeling more like herself. The real her. The Azula she remembered being. Or maybe Aang just knew how to bring, the real her out. He had worked so closely with her spirit, that he had to know it almost as well as his own.

Such a notion chilled and excited her all at once. "I never thought that you were one to gauge power, Avatar."

"I try not to." He said. "But sometimes I have to." He looked back at her. "In this case, we need it because these people need to go down."

"I was thinking that we should raze this place. If we get rid of this facility then their research will be destroyed." Azula added.

"I was sort of thinking the same thing. I usually don't like destroying things, but I think it would be for the best this time." He paused. "I think that some blue fire would probably do the trick."

"I wonder where you're going to get that, Avatar."

Perhaps the spirit vines still had some sort of hold on her emotions, because in that moment, Aang was unbelievably appealing to her.


End file.
